Two shoes fit together: why a little-known regional council deputy from Yulia Tymoshenko's party decided to throw a stone in the garden of the odious Danylo Hetmantsev
Kyiv • UNN
Why did a little-known deputy of the regional council from Yulia Tymoshenko's party decide to throw a stone in the garden of the odious Danylo Hetmantsev
Hennadiy Mazur, a deputy of the Vinnytsia regional council from the Batkivshchyna party, is outraged that Ukraine may increase the military tax for individual entrepreneurs. The regional deputy posted the relevant post on his social media page, UNN reports.
Formally, the initiative to increase the military fee for individual entrepreneurs allegedly belongs to the government. But it was Danylo Hetmantsev, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's tax committee, who first announced it. Thus, it seems that he is the ideological inspirer of this somewhat controversial proposal.
And now a deputy of the regional council, little known outside the Vinnytsia region, has "unexpectedly" become interested in the issue.
The MP does not mention the name of Hetmantsev himself. The fact that this is a stone in his personal garden is evidenced by the photo of the head of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee attached to the post.
In the text itself, Mazur is "angrily indignant" that there is no fight against VAT fraud and the shadow tobacco and alcohol markets in the country.
Basically, the stone from Mazur came to the right place. For the past few years, everyone has been saying that Hetmantsev has been running the Tax Service in a manual mode. But not to promote the development of Ukrainian business and improve the investment climate in the country, but, on the contrary, to squeeze the last juices out of Ukrainian entrepreneurs who are already barely surviving in the face of Russian aggression and to "cover up" the schemes described by the regional council deputy.
And that would be fine, but the question arises: why Mazury, and why now?
Hennadiy Mazur, in addition to being a member of the Vinnytsia Regional Council, also heads the Trostianets district party organization of the Batkivshchyna party.
However, recently Mazur has not been so much engaged in solving the issues of his voters as in behind-the-scenes cooperation with representatives of other political forces.
This did not go unnoticed in Yulia Tymoshenko's party. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is now talk of Mazur's possible removal from the post of head of the Batkivshchyna district organization and his subsequent recall from the regional council.
In addition, Mazur is a former tax officer, and he knows very well how to create fraud and organize tax evasion schemes.
In 2013, during the Yanukovych era, when Mazur was deputy head of the Vinnytsia Oblast Tax Service, there was a high-profile scandal: his office and his apartment were searched by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Case concerned the importation of cheap Turkish gold into Ukraine and its subsequent sale under the guise of Ukrainian-made jewelry.
According to the investigation, in Ladyzhyn, a group of jewelry entrepreneurs, along with gold products of their own production, stamped gold jewelry of Turkish origin smuggled into Ukraine. For five years (from 2007 to 2012), they stamped more than a ton of gold jewelry made in Turkey at the Vinnytsia branch of the Central State Assay Control Enterprise, along with a small part of their own gold products.
As a result, about seven million hryvnias in taxes were not paid to the Ukrainian budget.
One of the pieces of evidence in the case was a notebook allegedly found in Mazur's office. At the time, law enforcement officers claimed that it contained monthly reports on business transactions with precious metals with personal signatures under each, as well as financial calculations for several years. From these records, the special service concluded that "the tax officer personally controlled the process and coordinated the actions of entrepreneurs aimed at tax evasion.
It can be assumed that Mazur simply wants to draw attention to himself, to show that he understands schemes, and thus can become a particularly "valuable employee" in the team of the head of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee.
